


An Odd Couple

by Crowlows19



Series: An Odd Couple [1]
Category: The Following
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 12:10:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4606272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowlows19/pseuds/Crowlows19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Very AU. Joe and Ryan were a couple long before Ryan started to suspect what his boyfriend was up to at night. Years later, when Joe breaks out of prison, Ryan has the unique position of being both the ex-boyfriend and the only Fed who ever came close to catching him. Season 1. Part 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Odd Couple

He had been out when the news broke early that morning. He had left for a coffee, not bothering to pick up his cell phone from the kitchen table. That was where Emma had found it buzzing crazily. She turned it off and turned on the TV, leaving it on mute. The banners across the bottom of the screen would be enough to alert Ryan to what Joe Carroll had done that morning. The second break-out was even more spectacular than the first and it would only be a matter of time before the FBI arrived to bring him into protective custody.

She stood behind the doorway to his bedroom and waited, silently, ready for the plan. He came in and had only walked a few steps inside when she rounded the corner, raising the gun to point at his head. He stopped, deeply surprised to see his friend and neighbor standing there, pointing a weapon at him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he exclaimed.

“My part,” she replied steadily. She had wanted to use a knife for this part but Joe had been emphatic that it be a gun. He was certain that Ryan would overpower her if she used a weapon that required her to be close. The gun put enough distance between them that Joe was relatively certain this plan would work.

“What?”

“I’ve been waiting years,” she snarled. “We’ve all been waiting for the signal.” His eyes darted around the room and finally landed on the TV where the coverage of Joe’s escape seemed to be on a neverending loop.

Emma had always known that Ryan Hardy would figure it all out in moments. That he would peg her as one of Joe’s friends. He had been keeping up with that sort of thing for the most part. He had even managed to visit the man once or twice himself. What she hadn’t expected was his complete lack of fear. His shoulders dropped, tension disappearing, and he rolled his eyes.

“Oh, god!” he exclaimed, clearly annoyed. “Did Joe send you here?”

“Of course.”

“To what? Play nice and gain my trust?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he can bite me,” Ryan snapped. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Joe had warned her this would happen. She shot him in the leg. What Ryan Hardy had apparently not counted on was that Joe had asked her to use a tranquilizer gun. He was unconscious within moments and being carried from the building by other Followers. Emma paused just long enough to collect the one book that was always sitting out but never being read.

_The Gothic Sea_ by Joe Carroll.

00000

It was a long night of driving. Ryan had been as uncooperative as possible once he had woken up. He had even managed to bite off the driver’s ear, nearly causing the car to crash into a ditch. The Follower in the passenger seat managed to straighten the wheel just in time to save them all from a horrible crash. Emma had pistol whipped him for that but Ryan had just laughed, spitting out the ear as they rolled to a stop. The original driver was now laid out in the back of the SUV, passed out from pain, and bleeding everywhere. They left the windows open in an attempt to get rid of the smell.

By the time they reached the manor, even Emma felt a bit nauseous. Only Ryan Hardy seemed to be fine, though his teeth were gritted in very poorly disguised anger. When the ex-FBI agent spotted Joe standing on the steps he actually growled. Emma and the other Follower unlucky enough to be sitting on his other side, shied away.

It was a testament to Ryan’s intense, burning anger that he was sitting in a car full of budding serial killers and he was the most frightening person. Emma got out of the car and pulled on Ryan’s leather jacket sleeve lightly. He followed her without any fight. His hands were bound in front of him, only slightly limiting his mobility.

He glared deeply at the ground, refusing to look up at Joe who was smirking in pleasure.

“Ryan,” he greeted, stepping forward and placing both hands on Ryan’s upper arms. “I haven’t seen you since you broke up with me in prison.”

“That’s because I didn’t want to see you,” Ryan snapped, finally looking up. Joe took the opportunity to plant on kiss on his lips and stepped away just in time to avoid a knee to his groin.

“Still full of fight,” Joe laughed. “I’m glad.”

“Bite me!” Ryan shouted as he was dragged into the manor and to the room that Joe had designated as theirs. When everything was quiet again, Joe turned back towards Emma and gave her a hug. She was so relieved she nearly burst into tears. How many years had she waited for this hug? Too many.

“Thank you, Emma,” he said. “For watching over him for me.”

“Of course, Joe. Anything for you.”

00000

Joe had been smart enough to know that Ryan would be furious with him and uninterested in playing his games. Ryan was not the kind of man who would condone the Followers or the plan. He may have been willing to stand by Joe when he was just a failed writer and beloved Professor but Ryan had been utterly heartbroken to find out his deep suspicion that the man he’d been living with was killing college girls was true.

He had known all of this long before Ryan had shown up at the prison after the trial but it had still cut deeply to see Ryan on the other side of glass, telling him this was the last time they’d see each other, that he was done with him, and that he was leaving. Ryan had gone home to New York and Joe had sent Emma after him. He had told himself it was to keep Ryan out of trouble. It was actually to make sure he could get Ryan by his side when he was ready for him.

They had secured a chain to the wall on Ryan’s side of the bed. He had gotten so used to sleeping on the side by the window that even when he was single he still slept there. Joe had remembered this about him. The chain was just long enough that he wouldn’t have to sleep in one position all night and he could also reach the chair by the window. That was all. He had a radius of five feet once the shackle went on his right wrist. The door was locked and the windows were sealed shut. Even if he could get out of the shackle, the only place he could go was the bathroom.

The only thing he had managed to do was rip the lamp cord from the wall and throw the entire thing at the door. It shattered, spilling glass all over the rug. He tore the drawer from the nightstand and threw that too. It had been empty. Joe must have meant for him to put his own things there. He didn’t have anything with him.

Once he was out of the few things he could reach, he sat on the bed and rubbed his chest. He could feel the pacemaker, a reminder of the last time he could reasonably doubt what Joe had been. Up until the moment the knife went in, he’d been hoping he was wrong. He hadn’t been wrong.

He was alone for hours. Long enough that he justified taking off his boots and sliding under the covers. They had forced his jacket off hours ago and he hadn’t seen it since. It must have been near midnight when the door finally unlocked and Joe came in. He stepped over the broken lamp and drawer, clearly having expected them, and locked the door behind him. Apparently, he didn’t want anyone wandering in.

Ryan heard him moving around, getting ready for bed, and only then did it occur to him that Joe intended to pick up exactly where they’d left off. The thought made him feel ill and he turned so that his back would be facing Joe. He knew the other man wasn’t interested in killing him. Not here, not now.

He felt Joe slide in beside him.

“Ryan,” he said quietly, reaching out to lay a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t miss you at all,” Ryan replied, being mean just for the sake of it.

“Yes, you did,” Joe argued, inching closer. He couldn’t take it any longer and he turned over so that he could see Joe’s face. “I know you missed me. Even Emma could tell that.”

“I missed the thought of you,” Ryan said, letting Joe lace their fingers together. The taller man moved even closer, pressing himself against Ryan, and kissing his forehead. “I loved one person and I got another. You lied to me.”

“I know.”

“You stabbed me.”

“You threw me in prison,” Joe countered.

“You deserved that and you know it,” Ryan replied, turning back around. He didn’t let go of Joe’s hand and effectively moved himself into Joe’s embrace. “But I did miss this.”

“Ten years later and you still put butterflies in my stomach,” Joe said. “I will always love you, Ryan.”

“Yeah, I know. Just not enough to keep me out of chains.”

“I’ll take them off once your anger abates,” Joe promised, pushing his nose into the back of Ryan’s neck and kissing him gently.

“I’ve been calm for hours.”

“That’s not what I meant. You’ve been angry at me for years, Ryan. I saw it in your eyes when you visited me after the trial and I saw it in your eyes today. There’s another story to write and I don’t want you to run off before it’s over.”

This information gave Ryan a cold chill. He closed his eyes tightly and moved even further towards Joe, wondering how he had managed to fall in love with a psychopath.

00000

When Joe Carroll had escaped the first time it had taken the FBI all of fifteen minutes to knock on Ryan Hardy’s door. At four a.m. he had been passed out, drunk, and hadn’t heard anything until they broke down the door with a battering ram. He had been forced into a pair of blue jeans, boots, and a hoodie, before being escorted past his curious neighbors and into a car. He had passed out again on the drive over and had woken up when Mike Weston had held a cup of coffee under his nose. He liked that kid.

Then, in a small, concrete room, with a raging hangover and a surly attitude, he was informed of what his ex-boyfriend had been up to the night before.

“He killed five prison guards on the way out,” the kid had said.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Ryan had mumbled back, gripping his cup of coffee as if it was a lifeline.

“We know that,” Mike said. “What we don’t know is Joe Carroll. You do. You didn’t just catch him, you knew him intimately. Where would he go? Who does he trust?”

“Joe doesn’t trust anyone but himself. And he trusts himself to manipulate others. He has someone on the outside. Someone willing to let him hide in their guestroom or whatever.”

“Who would those people be?”

Ryan shrugged.

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

“Now, I know that’s a lie,” Weston replied. Ryan finally looked up at him, incredulous.

“I haven’t seen Joe in eight years.”

“He writes to you from prison,” Weston said. “Every week.”

“Yeah, but I never read them.”

“You expect me to believe that you just threw out eight years worth of letters?”

“Of course not, Weston,” Ryan snapped. “I’m not a moron. They’re all in a box under my bed. Unopened.”

“So you did expect something like this to happen?”

“Didn’t you?” Ryan shouted, at the end of his rope. “Don’t forget, I knew him intimately. Everything’s a game to him and everyone’s a game piece. Whatever he’s up to, he planned. He would have planned every little detail.”

“What did he plan? Why break out of prison? Why now?” Weston pressed.

“He probably told me,” Ryan admitted bitterly. “But I don’t read Joe’s letters.”

00000

It had taken Ryan Hardy six hours, five cups of coffee, a cheeseburger, and a napkin filled with doodles and grease stains to puzzle out Joe Carroll. It had taken Joe Carroll five and a half hours to put his plan into motion. By the time Ryan had finished with his lighthouse doodle, Sarah Fuller was already in Joe’s hands.

The FBI arrived just in time to see the ending of Joe’s prologue. They were far too late to save Sarah Fuller.

00000

They had refused to let Ryan see Joe, not that he had asked. What he had asked for was some vodka. They had refused to give him that as well until he started to get the shakes. Mike Weston managed to sneak some into him, weakly disguised in a water bottle. He’d then been led to where the camera feeds in Joe’s interrogation room were being monitored.

He and Mike Weston chatted about his relationship with Joe, the true crime book Ryan had written, and Joe’s supposed end game. They watched as Joe ran circles around the interrogator, some man Ryan had never met and didn’t care to.

“You visited him,” Mike said cautiously. “Why break up in person?”

Ryan glanced at a bank of computers where some junior agent was going through years of security feeds. They were all of Joe’s interactions and his visitors. Someone had accidentally-on-purpose cued up the video of Ryan saying good-bye to Joe in prison. He could see the back of Joe’s head and he watched as the killer’s shoulders tightened the further the conversation went. Ryan got visibly more angry. Near the end he stood up, shouting, and Joe had reached out to put a hand on the glass as if he could reach through it and comfort the other man. When Ryan walked away, Joe stood up. You couldn’t tell from the video but Ryan remembered vividly how upset Joe had been. He had honestly expected Ryan to take a few years to get over it and come back to him.

“I wanted to watch him hurt,” Ryan admitted, finally answering the question. He rubbed his temples, fighting a massive headache. He needed to pass out again. “I thought I was getting one person and I got another. He stabbed me in the heart so I returned the gesture. One day I might even be lucky enough to do it literally.”

There was dead silence in the room. Even Mike Weston was too uncomfortable to continue asking questions. Although he had worked up the courage to ask for Ryan to sign a copy of his book before he had been bundled into a chopper and shipped back to his apartment. Ryan had seriously considered throwing the book at the kid’s face but had ended up just signing it instead.

00000

Someone had already come in and taken the letters by the time he’d gotten home. The next couple of weeks had been a whirlwind of alcohol, news programs, and _The Gothic Sea_. He would have read Poe but he had burned that book years ago and wasn’t sober enough, long enough to go get a new one. He had never thought Emma to be one Joe’s Followers, but looking back on it as he lay next to Joe in the manor house, he really should have seen that one coming.

00000

A week after Ryan arrived Joe basically recreated their first date. He had been at Winslow University investigating a string of murders (some of which were Joe’s). He had been the only one to think there might be a literary connection and while his boss had been willing to let him run with it, he had to do so on his own. There were other more relevant leads.

He had been referred to Professor Carroll by the Department Chair. Their evening of case files had quickly turned into a night of whiskey, flirting, and eventually a pretty steamy make-out session. Joe had convinced him to go on a proper date a few nights later.

They had gone to a small bistro Joe knew of and liked. It was a little known, local place that had a very loyal customer base. When Ryan had been led from the bedroom to Joe’s study, he wasn’t sure what he’d find. He had not expected the candles, the wine, or the very same meal he’d eaten ten years ago at that small bistro. He couldn’t decide if it was endearingly creepy or just plain creepy. Either way he managed to scowl at his plate the entire time, pretending he didn’t like the food he was practically shoveling into his mouth.

Joe chattered on about this or that. Mostly, he talked about how his second book would far outweigh his first and that the reason for that would be Ryan. Apparently, he was writing a thriller disguised as a love story. At least, that was what it sounded like the Ryan. Joe had used far bigger, fancier, more literary words for what he was doing.

“You know, I’m pretty surprised with you,” Ryan finally said, when they were just sitting there, drinking what was left of the wine. Joe’s tolerance was far lower than Ryan’s and he had passed drunk about two glasses ago.

“What do you mean, love?” Joe replied.

“I just didn’t think you’d take on more, what do you call them?”

“Friends,” he said, annoyed. Clearly, he didn’t think of them as friends. He never would and they both knew it.

“I didn’t think you’d take on more friends after what happened with the last one,” Ryan said coldly. He was hitting below the belt and the sudden flare of anger in Joe’s eyes said so quite clearly. Ryan kept pressing. “Really Joe. You couldn’t control just one and Claire died. Now ten years later you through me in the path of how many of them? Thirty? Forty?”

Joe slammed his glass down on the table. Ryan was pressing buttons he knew were sensitive and he didn’t care. Joe’s wife had been murdered by a jealous student of his a full year before Ryan had arrived at Winslow University. It had taken him another two years to realize that she had been responsible for at least three of the murders pinned on Joe who hadn’t tried to separate himself from them. Ryan had never told anyone that the victim immediately following Claire had been his accomplice. It hadn’t been relevant.

“I took care of that and you know it,” Joe said, his voice low and controlled. “I have control of these ones.”

“Yeah, until you don’t,” Ryan replied. “What the hell is the point of all this? This house, this book, these crazy people? What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m sure you’ll piece it all together, soon enough,” Joe said, baiting him. “The great Ryan Hardy is on the case.”

“Screw you!” he yelled and stormed out of the room. He passed two Followers who made sure he went back to his room. He slammed the door in their face but he didn’t hear it lock and no one came in to reattach the chain.

Joe came in several hours later, still drunk, but no longer angry. Ryan had been looking outside the window, trying to pinpoint where exactly he was based on the trees he saw. He had been too angry and too hungover when they’d first driven here to pay attention. A stupid mistake, but one Joe had probably known he’d make.

“I even missed fighting with you,” Joe said, softly.

“Am I here to be a piece in your novel or did you just miss me that much?” Ryan asked, turning around and crossing his arms. He could tell with one look that Joe was completely miserable. He had a suspicion that it had very little to do with the minor argument they’d had at dinner. “What’s wrong, Joe?”

“Do you really care?” he asked.

“I care about you,” Ryan said immediately and, surprisingly, truthfully. “Why do you think you make me so pissed off so easily?”

Joe actually laughed for a quick moment.

“The FBI is not nearly as capable of finding me as you would be but they did manage to find several things they weren’t supposed to,” he said. “You were right to be concerned about my ability to control my friends.”

“Then just ditch them,” Ryan replied. He came close enough to brush his hands up and down Joe’s arms, trying to offer some sort of comfort.

“I can’t Ryan,” he said. “Not yet.”

00000

Ryan ran into Emma a few days later. He had basically banished himself to their room and had yet to be re-shackled. The chain was still hanging on the wall as a reminder of what would happen if he decided to do something he really shouldn’t do. Ryan had a feeling this basically consisted of setting foot outside.

Joe hadn’t come back to the room since the night of their dinner. Ryan was honestly puzzled as to why and figured that he was holed up somewhere writing. Joe had always done that when he’d been upset before. He doubted prison had broken him of that habit.

It only took a few days to go stir crazy and when he caught himself talking to himself he decided to at least wander the house. Besides, Joe had cut off his alcohol and this was the first time he thought he could stomach the other people around. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to memorize as many faces as possible.

Everyone was pretty friendly towards him. To them, Joe was a pretty much a god and they worshipped the ground he walked on. Since Ryan had been cast as Joe’s love interest, he was pretty much given the same respect. The only challenge he had was with the local sheriff, Roderick. Joe had apparently forbidden him from wearing his work clothes in the house and he wasn’t allowed to park his car on the property. Ryan let him complain without once letting on that this rule was mostly likely to prevent Ryan from finding out what town he was in. Or even what state.

Roderick creeped him out. Joe would lose control of him quickly enough, of that Ryan was positive. However, he did get a very interesting tidbit of information from the man. Roderick seemed overly spiteful and he was outright excited to deliver the news to Ryan. Ryan pretended it was inconsequential.

He ditched him quickly enough and continued his walk along the bottom floor, finally running into Emma in the kitchen.

“We don’t have much food,” she said, casually, as if she hadn’t lied to him for two years and then used the spare key he’d given her to kidnap him for Joe. “We need to go shopping again.”

He grunted and attempted to open the liquor cabinet. It was locked tight. More importantly it was made of metal so he couldn’t even break into it easily.

“Joe keeps the key,” she told him. She was polite enough not to say that it was because Joe was trying to get him sober. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Not really,” he said, taking a seat on a stool near her. He knew that she was one of Joe’s favorites. After all, he wouldn’t have just anyone babysit Ryan. “But going sober always hurts. It’ll pass.”

“If you need anything you can let me know,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if she bought his friendly act but he figured he should keep playing it until he didn’t need to anymore.

“I was wondering about Joe,” he said. She eyed him cautiously. He thought that was interesting. Everyone else had been ecstatic to talk to him about Joe. Although they had mostly nattered on about his literary genius. Ryan had always liked Joe’s writing but it was hard to tell if it was because he actually liked the writing or if it was because he just really liked Joe. Probably the latter.

“What about him?” she asked.

“Haven’t seen him for a few days. We had fight,” Ryan admitted. “Is he alright?”

“I think so, yes,” she said. She was visibly rattled.

“Are you sure, Emma?” he pressed. “Roderick said you were the one hanging out with him over the last couple of days.” She looked incredibly spooked by then.

“What did he tell you?” she asked.

“Pretty much everything,” he replied. She tried to stand and he forced her back down with a strong hand on her shoulder.

“Aren’t you two broken up?” she asked.

“I don’t care. I don’t care if you slept with him. I just don’t care.”

“Then why bring it up?”

“Because I wanted to warn you. At the end of the day, Joe isn’t going to be interested in you. He loved Claire; he loves me. You won’t figure into his life; not really. You aren’t a challenge and Joe always prefers a challenge.”

He left her in the kitchen, scared, confused, and more than a little angry. He had baited her into a fight. She didn’t know him well enough not to take to the bait.

00000

Ryan spent the rest of the day in Joe’s study. It had taken him less than a minute to figure out the password to Joe’s computer and even less to find this new book Joe was so interested in writing. He managed to read all of it before Joe wandered in from wherever he’d disappeared to.

“You really shouldn’t be reading that,” he said. He had clearly been in a bad mood before he’d walked into the room and Ryan had no interest in calming him down.

“Hi, honey,” he quipped, feet propped up on the desk, nonchalant, and ready to spar. “How was your day?”

“Terrible, thank you for asking,” Joe replied, closing the door. He strode across the room and slammed the lid of the laptop shut. “How did you get into that?”

“Please, Joe,” Ryan scoffed. “You think I don’t know how you think? I know what password you would use.” Joe swiped at his feet and Ryan acquiesced by putting his boots back on the floor. He stood up and circled the desk to where Joe was standing stiffly, crowding into his space. He reached for his hand and laced their fingers together.

Joe looked like a caged animal. Tense, waiting for a blow. Either Emma had warned him or he sensed it.

“You know, don’t you?” Joe finally asked.

“About you and Emma? Yeah, I do. Tell me, if you wanted to pick the low hanging fruit what was the point of having me here?”

Joe smirked and turned so that he could pin Ryan to the desk. He moved his hands to Ryan’s hips and lifted him until Ryan was sitting on the desk, Joe between his legs, incredibly close. Even when Joe had slept next to him that one week, it hadn’t felt as they’d been this close. For the first time in nearly a decade, Joe leaned in for a kiss and Ryan met him halfway. Joe lasted all of two minutes before he moved them to the couch.

And he was rather pissed off when Roderick interrupted with more bad news that the FBI had made another move and had found the town. He called it Havenport and Joe glared heavily at this breach of protocol. Ryan was heavily amused as he was escorted back to his room and away from all the action.

00000

Joe had been far too upset to pick up where they’d left off in the study but he did come back to Ryan’s room that night. It amused him to some extent that it had been that easy to recapture Joe’s attention especially from someone who arguably had more in common with Joe than Ryan ever would.

“You’re thinking too much,” Joe mumbled, nearly an hour after they had turned out the lights. Ryan snorted and turned so that he was pressed against his side, one arm flung over Joe’s chest possively.

“A little hard not to,” Ryan said. “Been a long day.”

“Only because you went snooping. Really, Ryan, it’s your own fault.”

“It’s not my fault you fucked Emma.”

“It’s been ten years Ryan,” he complained, managing to sound completely petulant. “And since you clearly weren’t interested I had to go somewhere. Besides, we aren’t actually together.”

“No, but you made it damn clear what you wanted,” Ryan replied, propping himself on one elbow so he could see Joe’s face in the moonlight.

“Still,” Joe smirked. “A man can get desperate.”

Ryan smiled and leaned down to kiss him. Things progressed quickly from there, the kisses getting heated and deep. Joe flipped him over on to his back and pressed into him. He wanted Ryan, had been fantasizing about him for years, dreaming about him. What he had never expected was for Ryan to have stashed a small knife from the kitchen underneath his pillow. He certainly hadn’t anticipated Ryan to put that knife in his side and then do it again. But as he lay there bleeding and in pain, listening to Ryan calmly dressing and lacing up his boots, stealing Joe’s coat on his way out, he thought that he was quite head over heels in love with this man. Bad attitude and all.

00000

Ryan had walked out the front door and down the path, climbing over the locked fence just like they’d taught him to at Quantico. It had taken him a couple of hours to find someone on the road at this time at night. It had been quite fortunate that it happened to be Mike Weston heading back to his motel. He’d been beaten up something horrible recently but he still managed to ask if Ryan was alright.

“Of course,” Ryan replied. “The only thing Joe was interested in was getting laid.”

Mike seemed rather confused by the statement and the way he said it but he put it aside in favor of calling in the location of the house Ryan had been held at. By the time the FBI had gotten there, Joe had managed to disappear from the compound with Emma and a few trusted Followers. Everyone else had been left behind to the mercy of the federal government and their prison system.

00000

It had taken several days for the FBI to pump out all the information they could from him. He had mainly been handled by Weston and the lead investigator, Agent Debra Parker. Ryan rather liked them both. They were ultimately easy to talk to and now that he was more or less sober (but still hurting) he was easy to get answers from as well.

He told them everything. Every detail of everything and everyone he’d seen or heard about. He even told them about how he’d convinced Joe to sleep next to him and how easy it had been to catch him off guard long enough to shove a knife between his ribs.

In return they told him everything Joe had been up to. The murders, the game, the pageantry. They even let him know what was in the letters he’d never read. Apparently, they were mostly apologies and love notes. Twisted love notes that mostly involved Joe killing people to prove that love but love notes nonetheless.

They kicked him loose several days later after he refused protective custody. Then he went back to his apartment with a new bottle of vodka and some Chinese food. He locked his door, turned on the news, watched the updates and theories about Joe Carroll, and got blazing drunk.

00000

He woke up to a ringing cell phone. He automatically pawed around the night stand for it and had it answered before he was fully awake.

“Hullo,” he grunted.

“Oh, dear, did I wake you?”

Ryan sat up straight and immediately regretted the action as his brain pounded into his skull. He fell backwards into his pillow, clutching his temples.

“Ryan?”

“What do you want Joe?” he snapped.

“How drunk did you get last night?” Joe asked. “Really, Ryan, there was a reason I wanted you sober. With that pacemaker of yours, this drinking habit is very dangerous.”

“Leave me alone,” he snapped and hung up. Joe waited a whole minute before calling back. Ryan didn’t know why but he answered again.

“Ryan, love, aren’t you the least bit concerned about me?” Joe asked. Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose, unimpressed. “After all, you did stab me. Twice.”

“Not fatally,” Ryan said. “I know how to stab people Joe.”

“Yes, indeed,” Joe laughed. “Still, it was rather rude. After all, I was trying to play nice.”

“Playing nice would be leaving me alone.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Joe chided. Ryan heard him shifting around. He wondered where Joe was. Was he at a safe house? A motel? Where? “I’m afraid I’m in danger of falling more in love with you than ever.”

“That’s not the appropriate response to being stabbed, babe,” Ryan mumbled, half-falling asleep. How easy it was to fall back into their pattern.

“No, I suppose not,” Joe sighed. “But it’s the response I plan to go with.”

“Is there a point to this phone call?”

“Marry me,” Joe said suddenly and Ryan finally opened his eyes.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Joe said. “It’s time, don’t you think?”

“Are you insane?” Ryan replied and hung up again.

He turned off his phone to so that he wouldn’t have to listen to Joe try to convince him why they would make a good married couple.

00000

It took a significant amount of alcohol to make him black out these days but he had apparently managed to do it anyway. He remembered opening a new bottle and then he woke up on a boat. When he looked out the window he saw nothing but the sea. He stumbled to the side of the boat and threw up into the water. He must have hung off the edge for at least half an hour before he dry heaved his way into functionality.

He found Joe on the upper deck, at the controls. There was a towel and a bottle of water on the seat beside him. Ryan didn’t know if these were meant for him but he used them anyway before sitting down. They were close enough that their arms brushed. Joe moved his arm to drape over Ryan’s shoulders.

“What happened last night?” he asked.

“You were very drunk,” Joe said. “And yet, you found me anyway.”

“I found you?”

“Oh yes,” Joe replied, amused. “You showed up at the grand finale. They think I’m dead.”

“The FBI,” Ryan stated, just knowing what Joe was talking about without having to be told.

“It took hundreds of sober federal agents to fall into the trap I set,” he scoffed. “You simply ran into it, completely drunk, and rather angry. You kept cursing at everyone.”

“Do they think I’m dead too?”

“Yes, dear, they do. It was easy enough to incorporate you. They’ll find pieces of me and probably assume the copious amounts of liquor in your system caused you disintegrate in the flames.”

“Are you saying I’m more flammable than you?” Ryan asked, head pounding too hard to be very witty.”

“Indeed.”

“And your Followers?”

“I told you I’d leave them behind when the time was right,” Joe said. “I did in the book.”

“There was no fire in the book,” Ryan said.

“You were also sober in the book,” Joe shrugged. “Sometimes you have to improvise.”

Ryan snorted and laid his head down on Joe’s shoulder, too sick to continue the conversation. Joe left him there to rest, too comfortable to care when Ryan’s weight numbed his arm.

00000

Ryan found his copy of _The Gothic Sea_ in a drawer by the bunk they were sharing.

“How did this get here?” he asked, confused, running a finger over the well worn spine.

“Emma took it from your apartment,” Joe mumbled, half asleep. They had been on the boat for several weeks, docking here and there to resupply and immediately shipping back out again. Ryan felt little to no need to attempt another escape at the moment. “I kept it in my desk and took it with me when we left.”

“I read it every year,” Ryan admitted.

“You are the only one.”

Ryan smiled, amused. He flipped to the title page where Joe had signed it.

_To my love. Always yours, Joe._

He had stared at the signature many times over the years, always wondering if it had been true or if Joe had simply been playing him. After Havenport he was inclined to believe it was true. He gently closed the book and set it back in the drawer. Turning back to Joe, he settled down to sleep curled around the man he’d put in prison for serial murder. He wondered if other people had such complicated lives.


End file.
